The role of emotional intelligence in the entrepreneurial performance

The emotional intelligence concept has recently acquired the attention of business researchers for its role in enhancing entrepreneurial skills and positively impacting entrepreneurial performance. Researchers have been investigating and studying the business success factors and indicators and why some business ventures are more successful than others. Therefore, operating and managing an entrepreneurial venture requires not only knowledge of the technical skills and tools to launch new business ventures, but also learning more about the competencies and capabilities needed to sustain and enhance the value offered and subsequently influence success in challenging business conditions. Maintaining and developing businesses require advanced entrepreneurial characteristics and abilities that positively impact entrepreneurial performance and lead to business success. With that in mind, emotional intelligence is sought to embrace different skills and competencies proven to improve entrepreneurial performance and lead to successful ventures. Emotional intelligence is sought to affect entrepreneurial performance in terms of communication and business relations, innovation, discovery and use of opportunities, risk attitude, problem-solving, and decision-making skills that improve entrepreneurial activities and affect business success. This research follows a qualitative phenomenological methodology that adopts a data collection method based on in-depth interviews. The reason for using the qualitative research method is to reveal the existence of a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and entrepreneurial performance. The aim of the study is to discuss the perceptions and perspectives of 17 entrepreneurs and business owners in the engineering industry, on the impact of emotional intelligence on their job performance based on real-life experiences. Thus, this study examines the role of emotional intelligence in influencing entrepreneurial performance by enhancing skills and competencies that contribute to business success. Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, entrepreneurial performance, entrepreneurial success, and business success.